During the fall of 2000 I read an article in European Communications magazine by Ann Swallow of Chorleywood Consulting that talks about the “bad” old days when you would get the same person each time if you called the telco with a problem (your accounts receivable clerk). She said, “That person had a vested interest in resolving the problem, not just to keep his call handling record up to par, but because he would probably have to face the customer’s anger if it wasn’t dealt with.” Her comment stuck with me and left me wondering about how to get back to the time she described.

I moved to a small town a couple of years ago. I’ve been pleased and shocked by becoming recognized. I’ve become a regular at different businesses in town. They’ve come to know me. Some even know what I’ll want before I speak. It’s a pleasure. I love that feeling of being recognized and being a “regular”. It makes me want to spend my money with these businesses.

I don’t get that feeling when dealing with my cable company, my telephone company, or my wireless phone company. I end up dealing with a mish-mash of people. Some are good listeners and work to solve my problems. Some are clearly under-trained for the work they perform. None of them make me feel good. None of them recognize me or remember the problems that I’ve had with their company’s services. What I don’t understand is, why don’t they?

Blame the Call Center

First I blame the call center. It treats CSRs and customers as interchangeable parts in a “customer service machine”. This leaves me feeling anonymous and it isn’t good for the CSR either. This anonymous treatment encourages a “CSR surfing” technique were you call the call center to ask for something repeatedly until you find a customer service representative who gives you what you want.

I want the call center to revive an equivalent to the old relationship between a range of phone numbers and a specific CSR. Either by gathering the caller ID and associating it with a customer account or by asking for the account information, they will forward me to the person who owns my account.

Like the relationship between a person and their barber or hairdresser, there is a strong bond that endures when people provide you service. I’ve seen the same barber for more than twenty years. I’ve moved farther away, but I still drive to have him cut my hair. As a customer I want a relationship with a person at my service provider that will help me solve problems and help me use the service well. Having someone at the company that has my interests at heart makes this happen.

Many times I’ve called my internet service provider and spent 30 to 60 minutes with them to solve a problem. I get to know the person. They get an idea of who I am. The next time I call with a problem I get someone entirely new. All the time spent on building a relationship, on developing an understanding of what I can expect, all of that time building a rapport was wasted.

I want this fixed and call centers can fix it. To solve the problem, start building relationship information and using it to route callers to people that they know. Instead of just routing to the first available agent, I want the agent with the most rapport. Perhaps after each call is finished I can be automatically polled to learn if I’d like to be routed to that agent again. If I say “yes” to the automated poll, I want the person offered to me again in the future. If they aren’t available, I want the option of having them call me when they are available.

Why should service providers do this for me?

To save money and to increase customer lifetime value by reducing churn.

More About Customer Love

How will you save money? By reducing turnover and reducing training costs. Another benefit of changing the way in which the CSR relates to customers is the improvement in the life of the CSR. The CSR becomes more like the barber or hairdresser who has a life-long relationship with their customers. Leaving their customers to go to another job requires leaving all the people they’ve come to know and who respect and like them. Customers that keep coming back to you, well, they love you. The following story gives life to this idea.

After graduating from college I worked as a programmer for the state government. The job was downtown and nearby was a fish shop called City Fish that also fried fish and sold fish sandwiches. I was a regular there. I came in about twice a week. I’d talk to them and we got to know each other. We grew close enough that I could signal in from the window as I walked to the door and they would know if I wanted one or two sandwiches. After shopping there for about a year, I got a better job in another town. When I told them that I was moving to another town, they asked when I would last come to the shop. They told me not to forget to come that day. When I got there, they had gotten a cake to wish me well in my new job and they made a wonderful fish sandwich with flounder (instead of the usual cod). I’ll never forget the City Fish shop. They didn’t have to do anything so wonderful for me. I was going away. They didn’t do it for the profit. They did it for the relationship and its value to them.

If I called my regular CSR to get help, I don’t expect to get a cake, but I won’t be surprised when they suggest a different rate plan to help me save on my bill. They will tell me that the phone that I was using with my cellular carrier has developed a bad reputation and I may be happier with a different one. If they were my ISP, they would have known that the cable modem that I’d been using for more than a year has a history of problems that explains the poor throughput that I’d been getting and the problems maintaining a connection with their email server. These are all things that today’s CSR is expected to do, but do they have the motivation when they are supposed manage a certain number of calls each day? My relationship with them gives them the motivation to help me and it reduces the churn caused by dissatisfaction.

Imagine the day when service provider management is worried about customers leaving when the competition recruits their top CSRs away. What a reversal of status!

I want to know when I can develop a relationship with my service provider. Developing a relationship with my service provider is developing a relationship with a person at my provider. When am I going to get that person “who knows my name”?

Special Note

This article was printed in a modified form in the October 2002 issue of Billing magazine. Published by Tarifica, it can be found at http://www.billing.co.uk

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